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Sunday, January 05, 2014

Review: Storm and Stone

Behind the ivy-clad
walls of an exclusive boarding school, lurks a sinister web of
corruption, scandal, and conspiracy. American student Raven Stone has
noticed something is horribly wrong. First there were the unexplained
disappearances. Then there were the teachers' lies. And now the death
threats ...Also entangled in the disturbing turn of events is the
enigmatic Kieran Storm - a fellow student with a killer intellect and a
body to die for. He's heading for trouble and taking her with him. Raven
can feel herself falling in love, but can she trust a boy she knows
almost nothing about...

I received a free proof copy of this book from OUP Children's in exchange for a honest review. This does not affect my review/opinions in any way. Thank you!
Unputdownable. In one word, that sums up Storm and Stone entirely (well. I had to put it down for dinner, but apart from that...). In a phenomenal setting with clear-cut characters, I found it flawless and I absolutely adored it.

The first few pages of the book are made up of character history and foregrounding, but unlike in many other books, it doesn't overwhelm you and there is stuff going on in the background. I loved Raven's character by page seven- she said what she thought and didn't regret it. The introductions to the characters were intricate, but there was an element of secrecy that made it all the more interesting.

The relationships- in family, friends and romantically- were impeccably described and developed. The romance between Kieran and Raven was just purely beautiful. One of my favourite quotes from the book was " 'You're still Kieran.' My Kieran, she added to herself.". I also loved the brotherly (they aren't brothers but they acted like it!) relationship of Joe and Kieran. They were basically bipolar in personality, but they had an amazing friendship. Another favourite quote of mine was "Kieran gave Joe a 'do-I-look-like-someone-who-relies-on-second-hand-information?' stare."

The few action scenes throughout the book were described and went at a perfect pace, and the book as a whole was full of tiny, beautiful details. The ending was slightly cliche, but it worked really well with the book and I adored it. Another thing is that the book showed what actually goes on in a school setting. Teachers, inspectors etc gloss over it all and don't tell people what goes on, in real life, and this was reflected perfectly in the book.

It's been quite hard not for this review to be a gushy mess! Me and my blogger friend Amber were fangirling over Kieran on Twitter for about an hour, as you can see in these tweets...

So, as you can tell, I absolutely loved Storm and Stone and I can't find a fault. I couldn't put it down and I'd recommend it to everyone!

1 comment:

Haha, I love how I make an appearance in your fangirling with Amber ;) I just had to find out who this guy is, haha! Kieran sounds AMAZING. You can never have enough book boyfriends...

I love boarding school books, they always have such great plots and the relationships are really fun to read about since they live at school so they have to sneak around. I need this book in my life ASAP! And the rest of Joss Stirling's books. *makes mental note* You've definitely made me want to read this!